Ask.com Maps Offers Aerial Imagery of Europe; Traffic New to MS Live Local But Not to MSN
Search Briefs
Online Maps & Aerial Imagery
Ask.com Maps and Aerial Imagery of Europe Barry's post on Tuesday about MSN Live Local rolling out more imagery of Europe (cool stuff!) reminded us to mention that Ask.com Maps provides aerial imagery and street maps for some parts of Europe.
It's still a work in progress (street names, locations for searching) but the Ask.com Maps imagery looks very impressive. We also have imagery for a small portion of Australia.This map (PDF) offers a look at what resolution you'll find for imagery for various parts of Europe.
+ The Canals of Amsterdam
Btw, in many, but not all cases, Ask Maps "dynamic locations" feature will work for European locations. The same is true for driving and walking directions. Remember, "right-clicking" on a specific point on a map allows you to quickly and easily add that location to your location list.
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-- Web Search--MSN Live Local Microsoft Live Local Adds Traffic Info, Traffic Info Has Been Accessible via MSN Autos for Some Time
1) Map Live Traffic for Major Cities
Over 30 cities available. Click the traffic link at the top of the page to find the cities available. MS has offered real-time traffic info on maps on their MSN Auto site for a long time. The only difference from what we can see, the maps themselves. Actually, traffic info is available for many more cities via MSN Autos than MSN Live Local. Btw, the MSN Auto site also offers real-time traffic info delivered via SMS, MSN Messenger, or email for very localized areas. Yahoo Maps also offers real-time traffic maps. Traffic data is provided by Traffic.com. Btw, Traffic.com offers a great set of services (free) including traffic alerts via RSS and custom alerts delivered by voice (via your phone).
2) Save favorite Maps to Windows Live Favorites
3) Collections, "Keep lists of important Windows Live Local locations, order them any way you want, and share them with your friends."
4) You'll also notice that the Live Local search boxes have moved from side-by-side placement to vertical placement.
5) Bird's Eye Imagery of Some UK Locations
6) Driving Directions for Europe
7) More info here.
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Web Search--Google
Google Wants to Talk, Again
Just a few weeks after the Google shareholder meeting, Google Press Day, and Google Analyst Day, Google brass have announced yet another get together. This time around, a web conference/webcast (May 31, 2006 at 11am PDST) to tell investors and analysts more about what's happening at the company. From an email, "As our CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned during our last earnings call (listen here), we would like to offer more opportunities for the investment community to interact with our senior management," said Kim Jabal, Director of Investor Relations, Google. "We hope that this call will be valuable to investors and provide further insights into our business." Interesting, a company that was first quiet about talking about the future, now wants to talk a lot. Reuters goes on to point out, "The stock is down roughly 10 percent so far this year on concerns about mounting competition in the Internet industry and Wall Street's frustration with Google's refusal to provide guidance on its financial outlook." Interesting to note that today's announcement comes about a day after Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave an exclusive interview to CNBC. Highlights and video from the interview are posted here on ResourceShelf. Btw, no word about who will be able to ask questions.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
